Monthly Archives : September 2018

Standing desks soared into the spotlight after prominent studies came out noting how dangerous it was for office workers to stay inactive throughout the workday.

Just like open offices, the standing desk movement became a trend that still has momentum in 2018. And, just like open offices, standing desks have proponents and detractors.

We reached out to businesses across the country to find out what they thought about standing desks. In response, we received a lot of responses from managers and employees who offered their opinions about standing desks.

In this post and the next, we’ll reveal those opinions and our insight. This first post will highlight those who said they like standing desks. The next post will provide the perspective of those who tried standing desks and weren’t satisfied with the results.

“For my health and livelihood”

C.J. Comu, founder of water company Earthwater, said that he’s used a vertical desk for the past year. He’s read one too many articles detailing the health problems created by a sedentary work life and the standing desk was a practical solution for him.

“I find that it has not only helped me stay mobile, correct my posture and keep my blood flowing,” Comu said. “I like the liberty of flowing in and out of my office and I also tend to keep my correspondence to a minimum.”

“They are awesome.”
Dr. Sylvie Stacy, founder of physician career consulting site Look for Zebras, said she uses a convertible desk that allows her to change between sitting, standing and walking.

“I am a physician and I use one myself,” she said of her desk. “I love being able to change positions and get my body moving while I’m working since I spend so much time on the computer. They are awesome”

She said the key is to find a solid setup that will foster comfortability, something that cheap setups won’t offer. She also told us that her desk helps her focus, too, although it has more to do with moving around during the day than it does with actual standing versus sitting.

“I alternate between sitting and standing throughout the day, and I think the impact on my ability to focus is a result of the frequent change in position more so than the actual standing aspect,” she said. “I believe I could alternate between, say, sitting at a desk and sitting on the couch and maintain the same focus.”

We heard the same thing from Olivia Billet, marketing coordinator at Velo IT Group. Her adjustable desk is a catalyst for frequent movement.

“Sitting through the whole workday makes me feel tired and sluggish,” Billet. “I find I’m more active and alert when I’m standing, which is exactly what I need when 3:00 o’clock rolls around!”

“Reduced my back pain…”

If you don’t focus on your posture while sitting at your desk, you’ll find yourself hunching over. Using the wrong office chair can cause back pain, too.

For Tatiana Morand, content marketing and SEO coordinator at Wild Apricot, her standing desk provides a dual benefit. It keeps her fidgety tendencies at bay and, as someone with back problems, standing has strengthened her posture.

“I have a standing desk in my office, and I love it. As someone who’s naturally very fidgety, being able to stand up when I’m working on repetitive tasks helps me focus,” she said. “And, having the ability to alternate standing and sitting whenever I want has helped my posture and has drastically reduced my back pain.”

Customize your standing desks

There are multiple choices for standing desks. In fact, in this one post, there was mention of adjustable desks, standing desks and standing desks that can turn into walking desks.

In each of these situations, you’re dealing with either a stationary standing desk or an adjustable desk that will most likely be placed in a cubicle or an open office next to another co-worker. In these situations, the desk itself may be novel but the need for privacy is as time-honored as offices themselves.

Whether you’re at a standing desk or sitting at a traditional desk, we can provide privacy panels that we fit to your desk’s dimensions, protecting any sensitive information on your desk and reducing noise between your work area and that of your coworker’s.

Contact us to set up a consultation for your workplace or stop by our website to look at our privacy panel offerings.

The headline on a TechCrunch acrticle published this past month says it all: “Yes, open office plans are the worst.”

Reporter Sarah Wells did a deep dive into some of the reasons why open offices present more problems than solutions, mentioning a recent Harvard University study that found open offices actually reduced productivity and face-to-face interaction.

The article spurred a lively conversation on Reddit, where there were more than 100 comments.

In this post, we’re going to review the article and the comments from the subsequent Reddit post.

Open Offices Result in Closed-Off Employees

The most striking point in Wells’ article came from the Harvard study, which noted that open offices resulted in more emails and less face-to-face interaction.

“Contrary to common belief, the volume of face-to-face interaction decreased significantly (approx. 70%) in both cases, with an associated increase in electronic interaction,“ the study notes. “In short, rather than prompting increasingly vibrant face-to-face collaboration, open architecture appeared to trigger a natural human response to socially withdraw from officemates and interact instead over email and IM.”

With this data in hand, Wells went on to note that increased email interaction and decreased face-to-face resulted in a measurable decline in productivity.

“While the concept behind open office spaces is to drive informal interaction and collaboration among employees, the study found that for both groups of employees monitored (52 for one company and 100 for the other company) face-to-face interactions dropped, the number of emails sent increased between 20 and 50 percent and company executives reported a qualitative drop in productivity,” Wells wrote.

She went on to point out some of the conclusions from the study, conclusions we’ve known for a long time. Primarily, that humans tend to want privacy when they’re faced with an open spatial environment that doesn’t provide them any anonymity.

Our brains are wired to perform at the peak level when they sense that there’s a certain level of spatial and auditory privacy. While there may be an anomaly or two, science notes that we’re hard-wired to excel in creativity and productivity when we have our own space.

Reddit Responds: The People Agree

As we mentioned earlier, more than 100 people responded to the TechCrunch link posted in Reddit’s Business sub (business-focused message board).

The top comment in the thread was from a user named “themick”, who wrote the following:

“I went from a job with an open office to a job with tall 6ft cubes… The cubes are the greatest thing ever. I have a little bit of peace and I feel like I get more done during the day.”

Another user named ”lemon_tea” pointed out another important aspect of a cubicle-based office – that you can’t really have a private conversation amid a sea of bean bags, desks and anchorless coworkers:

“The other terror is having a phone conversation with someone who sits in an open office or being on a conference bridge. Good luck picking their voice out of the background noise they continuously inject on the line. And for some reason they never mute their line to take care of the noise.”

“AiresWolf3” added another insight we’ve talked about in the past: cost efficiency. There may be instances in which a company chooses an open-office design simply because it costs less.

“Does anyone really believe that open office plans are about “driving informal interactions and collaboration”? I thought that was just a polite fiction given by management to justify cost-cutting,” the AiresWolf3 wrote. “Sort of like how ‘streamlining’ and ‘focusing on our core business’ is a polite way of saying they’re laying off entire departments.”

The user also noted that open offices aren’t always a good fit for introverts, especially in publishing jobs where editors need a quiet, focused space for their work.

“I worked for a publishing company with an open office plan, which was just cruel. Editors are some of the most introverted people on the planet and we all went to great lengths to pretend that we were not aware of one another,” the user said. “We would send IMs to people who sat two feet away.”

In the end, he or she said cubicle life was better for his or her job than an open office.

“I now work in an office with cubicles,” AriesWolf3 wrote. “I never thought I would have such warm and fuzzy feelings toward cubicles, but that’s adult life for you.”